BILL ANNOUNCES: Straydog radio show covering the events of Thursday, July 23, 2015. This is Bill, Juana and Emma. We are here to do last Thursday’s show. It was a sad day.JUANA: It was a really sad day. We didn’t get many pictures at the shelter. We did get some of our crew doing kennels. After they worked in the kennels, Wayne used the push mower.BILL: It’s a walk behind, self-propelled, push mower and we got it for $200, which was a good deal. Wayne uses it in the areas, where I can’t get the grass with the riding mower. He was mowing in the little H2 front park.

Wayne cleaning one of the many pools we have during the summer.

And Ronnie scrubs a water buckets before filling with fresh water.

George Jr. cleaning a pool in his section.

Wayne mows Park Two.

﻿We didn’t get pictures of what happened. Volunteer Ms. Polly was here caregiving our doggies and doing rounds with all of the doggies, which she does every Thursday. She has her favorites and we all do. She brings all of the dogs treats and she passes them around. Last week I told her that Jill wasn’t doing very well. Ms. Polly didn’t think she was going to be able to come to Straydog in time to say goodbye to her. We couldn’t procrastinate any more. We had to take Jill on Thursday. She was ready. She was messing on herself and she wouldn’t eat or get up. She was just lying there. It wasn’t fair to her to hold on to her. We had to do what we had to do. We took her to the vet and held her and kissed her and let her go. She passed very quickly and peacefully with Dr. James, Gordie, Bill and me. It was a very, very sad day.﻿

We came back and hugged Jack. I was going to say that he doesn’t understand what was going on, but I think he does. He’s been trying to stay away from her. I think he knew that something was wrong with her. It’s going to be hard for him. Jack is deaf and so was Jill. Even though they were both blind, we think that Jill saw just a little better than he does. They have been together since they were born and he has relied on her to see. It is very hard. Thankfully, I’ve been taking some of the Chihuahuas to the park with them, so Jack won’t be completely alone now. I’ve been taking Rose, Bug and Henry to the park with Jack and Jill. I think they will help Jack get around in the park a little, even though sometimes he just stays near the gate, waiting for Jill to come out.

Another reason we don’t have any pictures is that my grandbaby Gavin was very sick on Wednesday. Lacie couldn’t miss work and he had a doctor’s appointment and I took him. He had been vomiting and he couldn’t hold any food down. When Lacie was seven months old, she had the same thing, which is rare in girls. The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with Gavin, but he couldn’t hold anything down. He was drinking three ounces of formula and slowed down to one ounce and right after he ate he would vomit. That’s not normal for Gavin. Something was wrong with him. After he got sick, Lacie remembered that she had pyloric stenosis. In pyloric stenosis, the pylorus muscles thicken, blocking food from entering the baby's small intestine. Only three babies in 1,000 get this and they are usually boys. It was very rare for a girl to have it. Dr. Hyder had to rule that out and, even though he was 100% sure that Gavin didn’t have it, he wanted to run some more tests. He said Gavin was too old and babies usually develop this, when they are two weeks old. He said that Gavin, at seven weeks, was too old. I told him his mother had it at seven weeks. He sent us to an emergency room for a sonogram. So I went to Athens Emergency Room. I called Lacie. She was working at Morton Clinic and she met me over there. They did a sonogram and that’s what it was. The doctors sent us to Children’s Hospital in Dallas. We were there Wednesday evening and they had to make sure that was what Gavin had. They did another sonogram to confirm it and the only solution was surgery. They said it was a simple surgery, but there is no simple surgery to a family, when it’s their baby. The doctor said that they would do it on Thursdaymorning. Then they said late Thursday afternoon. We were waiting and suffering. I asked Bill to drive to Dallas and get me and we went back to Straydog and took care of Jill. Gavin had his surgery and everything went well. He is a strong little booger and the best baby ever. He couldn’t eat anything and he was starving. He was getting his nutrition from an IV. It was sad to see our baby suffering like that. Thank goodness, he was taken care of and they fixed him. Jill is taken care of too and she’s in heaven with Ms. Pat. It was a sad day and a happy day for Gavin.